Don’t blame ‘the media’ for reporting your own violent language

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on July 14, 2024.

Boston Globe reporter James Pindell stood in front of the press riser in the 91-degree heat as the gun smoke settled and Donald Trump rose up with blood running down his cheek, pumped his fist, and yelled, “Fight! Fight! Fight!” The crowd, understandably in shock, began to roar back.

“After Trump had been escorted to his car and people sensed the rally was over and they were safe, the crowd turned on the media,” Pindell wrote. “The crowd was angry. Middle fingers were everywhere. They asked the press if they were happy and blamed the media.”

Rick Pidcock

Video footage confirms Pindell’s experience. As Trump was lowered into his SUV, the crowd began yelling “F*** you!” to the journalists documenting these historic events.

One man raged, “This is your fault!” Pointing at individual members of the media, he screamed, “You! You! And you and you! This is your fault! Every last one of y’all! This is your fault!” Others chimed in, echoing his words before police officers broke it up.

Then GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene chimed in, appearing on the far-right, conspiracy theory peddling network “Real America’s Voice” and posting on X: “TO THE MEDIA: THIS IS YOUR FAULT. They demonized us, they called us Nazis, and they spent the past decade inciting violence against us. They do it every day, and yesterday they got what they wanted, an assassination attempt on President Trump and one of his supporters murdered.”

Giving space for initial over-reaction

Of course, I want to give space to people being angry and saying some over-reactionary things about the assassination attempt on Trump yesterday. Violence is never OK. And no matter what any of us feel about Trump, he doesn’t deserve to get shot and his supporters don’t deserve to be killed. So we all should be angry. And if we have any empathy for our Trump-supporting neighbors as humans, we should give them some space to react and perhaps overreact.

But it’s completely wrong for Trump fans to blame yesterday’s shooting on the media.

The use of violence metaphors

There is plenty of blame to go around for the violent language that’s been utilized in American politics. Many will point to President Joe Biden saying just this past week, “It’s time to put Trump in a bullseye.” While I don’t believe that’s proof of the conspiracies claiming Biden directly commanded the shooting, I agree that his words were a serious problem. It is never OK to use violence metaphors.

Continue reading at Baptist News Global.